1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cell observation apparatus, a cell observation method, and a program, and more particularly to a cell observation apparatus, a cell observation method, and a program that can facilitate the setting of schedules.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a cell (culture) observation apparatus that serves to observe the culturing process of cells, the cells are cultured in a culturing atmosphere maintained under conditions suitable for cell culturing. Further, in the cell observation apparatus, time lapse photography is performed to photograph the cells at predetermined intervals in order to confirm that the cells are cultured normally. The user observes the state of the cultured cells on the basis of images obtained with the time lapse photography.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-277754 discloses a microphotographic apparatus that can perform time lapse photography in a plurality of photographic ranges, without limitations placed by the observation field of the microscope.
In the conventional cell observation apparatus, the user sets a photographic magnification for photographing the cells, a Z stack number, and a number of photographic points, determines the photographing time on the basis of these settings, and sets the photographic conditions such as the photographing frequency and photographing interval for time lapse photography by the photographing time, and the time lapse photography is performed according to a schedule based on the photographic conditions. However, in a case where the schedule that is newly registered by the user overlaps the already registered schedule, time lapse photography sometimes cannot be performed according to the schedule. Thus, in the conventional cell observation apparatus, whether or not the photographic conditions are adequate is not determined when the user registers a schedule.
Therefore, the user has to be careful to avoid overlapping with the already registered schedule or has to adjust the settings such as the photographic magnification, stack number, and number of photographic points by conducting preliminary tests to determine the photographic conditions, and schedule setting cannot be easily performed.